There are some nice photos from Jerez. Mclaren Cars looking like some kind of animal and Ferrari too. BMW was very diferent this year, and that is nice.

But the 2009 cars have a boring look (Like the Jerez BMW-Sauber look). Bloody rules. Breathtaking Design, downn by law.

Mind you, in my experience die cast is alive and reasonably well – people (at least in my area) simply prefer to go and buy it in shops instead of online. This is due to a combination of delays in merchandise arriving (admittedly mostly the teams’ distribution chain’s fault) causing people to prefer getting items when they know they’re in stock and the regular discounting that occurs (I picked up a 1:43 2007 Fisichella Renault for less than £10 in a model shop recently, which is less than half of the price generally charged by the likes of Grand Prix Legends). The 1:18 models aren’t getting discounted yet, but that appears to be because they’re selling well enough at the original price set by the shop (which is about £35 – hardly a discount on the £28-£30 quoted by Ratboy for normal 1:18 F1 models!).

Those who can’t go to a shop to pick up models (for instance, because they live in America) look for heavily discounted models online. They do exist, but are more difficult to find. But when found, sometimes the discount is even bigger than it is in the model shops.

What this suggests is that the RRP (Recommended Retail Price) of die-cast models is much higher than the market will bear. This is unsurprising, since they are luxuries in a time when many have to watch every penny. Since Grand Prix Legends generally sell at RRP price, they would have been hit really hard by the lack of interest in such high prices. They’ve been expensive for ages, which is one reason why I have never used them (the fact that it was easier to hide the extent of my F1 obsession by bringing my merchandise home myself rather than via a postal service was an important consideration too).

Until Grand Prix Legends finds a way of discounting its die-cast models without making a loss, as the bricks-and-mortar shops and the discount web sites have, it will never make die-cast models work. And until die-cast model producers orientate their distribution and pricing structures towards the model shops and discount web sites of this world, they will never make the die-cast market work either. (and to The_Pope: I’d certainly buy a 1:43 Force India car, and only wouldn’t buy a 1:18 because nearly every horizontal surface is covered in books and magazines, many relating to F1).

So I suppose the short version is that it is the model producers’ and teams’ fault for producing this situation. The market is still there, it just looks in different places and at different prices to what has been marketed at in the past.

Incidentally, I notice on page 2 that they say that TV broadcasters love F1. ITV doesn’t, otherwise why would it let go of the rights mid-contract?

But that’s just me and I wouldn’t expect everyone or anyone to agree, this is just my preference. I love racing but I also love everything else that is F1: The thrills and spills, the technology and strategy and the glamour. All of it!

The pinancle of single seater racing means the are faster in every respect they accelerate, brake and corner faster leaving less oppurtunity to overtake. The drivers are generally the winners of lower categories who make very few mistakes again leaving very few opportunities for mistakes.

I don’t think F1 has ever tried to market itself as having the most overtaking manouveres per minute. However it can say that it has the fastest and most advanced cars, best drivers, season long battles with occasional defining moments in a season.

They are changing the regulations to reduce the aerodynamic effect and make the cars harder to drive but F1 still has to be significantly faster than GP2 or Indycars on a road course, to satisfy the drivers.

Racing isn’t just about wheel to wheel racing its being first to the finish, the same as athletics, cycling etc. At the end of the day its all about winning and not so much about putting on a show. Changing things too much to appeal to fans is almost patronising.

Even in a standard race with no rain or safety cars there is usually at least one fast driver out of position after the start trying to make up positions and maybe other drivers on similar pace to each other racing closely. Admittedly it may take a mistake for one to pass each other but no one has a divine right to pass another unless the other is at fault.

The middle of the race is generally complex as strategies unfold and faster drivers get caught behind slower drivers. If you don’t appreciate what this does for a race I really can’t understand you.

The end is perhaps a bit less interesting but sometimes there are battles still to be resolved.

Take away pitstops or change the cars completely and over 300 Kilometres I don’t think you would improve racing over the distance. I’m fairly sure races would be resolved far earlier than they currently are, ultimately leading to a boring overall race.

And another thing F1 drivers don’t lack personalities the media creates them with every headline, description and feature (Sutil playing piano, Trulli at his vineyard, Webber on a bike) and I really couldn’t care less.

I, on the other hand, want to watch fast cars going around tracks that do not resemble your local supermarket car park in layout. When one car gets near to another car, I want to see them overtake each other and fight for position. I don’t want to see them follow around in procession, waiting to gain an advantage during the pit stops. Currently it appears that the boys on the pit wall do all the drivers thinking for them! They even tell them how to handle the start by telling them where to place their car! It simply isn’t motor racing.

It really annoys me when someone pipes up with the old chestnut of ‘everybody used to die, it was so unsafe’. We know this. However, I would argue that refuelling is ridiculously dangerous, just as much as many of the tracks that have been consigned to history.

Times have moved on and we should be able to have fast, challenging tracks but with minimising the old dangers. Remember, drivers used to die because of hitting trees and walls on the side of the track, because of inadequate marshalling (Zandvoort ‘73 springs to mind)or because the cars were not built with safety in mind.

I also think the ‘good old days’ you are referring to is the 1986 season where fuel consumption was everything and lots of cars ran out of juice. We don’t have to go back to that either.

If you want to watch very dull, very clever men working out their strategy, take up chess.

Now technology has moved on and F1 merchandise should do too. I’m going to keep an eye on Codemasters F1 game, but I’m just not convinced that it’ll make the grade considering the quality of “simulation” in their last driving games.

As for GPL’s moan, (politely) who cares about die-cast models? As we approach the second decade of the 21st century I suspect they’re suffering from the fact that kids these days have moved on – they play their PlayStations rather than with toy cars.

Adults are likely too busy trying to pay their mortgage or petrol / food bills. Mattel et al appear to be responding to market demand – who is gonna buy a die-cast Force India car?? Maybe some of the die-hard collectors who have commented so far but without demand from the wider market, I can hardly blame the manufacturers for not bothering.

Just my 2p

robert Mackay, that mouse mat you speak of, i thought it was 250 pounds, not 50.
and optical mice don’t work on it, too slick.

Kubitza have Nosferatu vampire look.

And Lego had problems to survive against computers too.

Whatever anyone else says F1 is the most popular form of motorsport. The cars are fast, complex and interesting (NASCAR and Indycar no longer are). The races are complex and unpredictable (i.e. not always wheel to wheel action but often they unwind in an unpredictable way (MotoGP races have no real strategy and are pure, but formulaic)

Lets go back to the good old days where less than half the field finsished, 4 cars finished on the lead lap, the races weren’t televised and drivers actually died. Those youtube vidoes are highlights, just like you get from current races… From where I’m sitting I kind of like the way F1 is now.

F1 is more like a business now. Ecclestone doesn’t care about what track is built but the money that will go into his pocket. Another factor is the person who governs it does not have the dignity to step down after digusting aspects of his public life goes into public domain.

I think F1 definitely could do with improving in a few key areas. I don’t think you can do much about driver personalities though – pretty much every major sport with a lot of money involved sees the same bland banal competitors. There’s too much sponsorship money and PR to be a controversial figure. The real shame is that there’s not quite enough scope for the drivers to show their personality on the track. Forgetting the actual racing, with its very restrictive regulations, how about the frowns you get from the FIA for doing donuts after a victory! (It’s like banning a player for taking his shirt off in celebration after scoring a goal…oh wait, they already do that!) We’ve been over it a few times, but it’s always worth repeating: engagement with the fans, creating drama and excitement, putting on a show and selling bucketloads of merchandise is NASCAR’s forte….

The flipside is is that this is clearly a company throwing its toys out of the pram because business is tricky. I guess credit crunches etc. are to blame to an extent, but maybe the problem lies with what they are trying to sell and their target demographic? I’ve no doubt diecasts are pretty cool, but it does seem to me a bit more of a hobby/collection item for the slightly older, pretty hardcore F1 fan. That’s not to denigrate or insult those that do collect them – I just imagine that, for a sport thats meant to be glamorous, fast, and extremely technological, an exacting replica of the aero package of Buttons third place finishing Honda (for example) is always going to be less than mainstream. It just seems a little bit F1 1970’s style to me, a bit anoraky, like collecting train numbers, a bit exclusive as well.

Like I say – this isn’t an insult. I can’t talk, because I have some, and I like being anoraky about my sport. But I recognise that its gotten quite a niche market now. The official attempts to bring the merchanidising into this century haven’t worked – the videogames have been on hiatus, the clothes ridiculously overpriced. And who wants to pay 50 quid for a carbon fibre mouse mat? If you try to play on the “exclusive” aspect of F1 you’ll not sell things in large quantities, even if it is a defining part of your brand. Having said that, I walked into Tesco the other day, and there was a bunch of cheap and cheerful T-shirts with the official logo blazened across them, right at the front door, so maybe the message is getting across that F1 needs to get a bit more mainstream with its merchandise.

they also make a Button BAR04 model with the same hideous plinth and man model next to it.

*but yeah, even more hideous.